Three classifications: fertile queen, infertile females, drone males. Biologist argument number one is in the bag.
The next rebuttal argument that stuck with me was one concerning fish. There are several species of fish that can change sex, in adulthood, if the need arises. These species are called protogynous hermaphrodites.
Groups of these fish are usually protected by a large, dominant male. If that protector should die, it is entirely possible for a female in the group to grow larger and actually transform into a male, thus taking on the protector role. This was news to me so I looked it up. Sure enough, there it was, staring me in the face. Score: Biology 2, Transphobe: 0.
Do you recall when Lina and Arabel met the character I on the island of drones? When Arabel asks where I came from, I responds, “I does not know. One day I is not here. The next day I is. Sent by Great Tree, I suppose.”
I has no gender-specific pronouns, because I is in all likelihood a protogynous hermaphrodite. Though, unlike a fish transitioning from smaller female to larger male, I transitions from haploid drone to diploid in order to be the protector of the drone colony. According to I, this is the will of the Great Tree, making it one-hundred percent natural or at least something not questioned by I.
And what is this Great Tree? As cited in the opening bits of scripture, the Great Tree has been around for eternity and is the source of all things. The Great Tree idea is present in religions around the world, many times referred to as the Tree of Life.
Every colony in Lina and Arabel’s world has a tree at its core. This is not a symbolic tree, but a tree one can touch, and its health reflects the health of the colony. Think of bees again for a moment. If you’re a bee, with your hive hanging from a branch, the health of your tree determines the fate of your colony. If your tree falls, you’re in trouble.
But the Great Tree is also more mystical than this. The Great Tree talks to Lina in dreams. The Wise Queen An Ming, gains wisdom by listening to the Great Tree, while the queen of Lina’s colony, too absorbed in herself, ignores the Great Tree and her colony suffers because of it.
“Wait a minute!” you might be saying. “If the Tree is a religious symbol and Lina, Arabel, and ‘I’ are definitely not model citizens of a traditional male-female society, does this mean that religion can be okay with all this uniqueness?”
I suppose it all depends on your Great Tree. The Tree Lina speaks with in her visions is kind and understanding. The Tree even has a sense of humor and speaks of love and how she dotes on her children.
And that, dear reader, brings us around to sub-Saharan Africa, where Lina first speaks to the Great Tree in a vision. This area of the African continent has long been thought to be the cradle of the human race, so no big surprise there. Though Lina is surprised.
“The air is so clean and clear. How can it be, so far into the abyss?” she says to the Great Tree.
That’s because Lina lives above the clouds. She refers to the land we humans live on today as the abyss. Following the bits of scripture at the beginning of each chapter gives some insight into why Lina has this reaction.
Lina’s distant ancestors (us) lived on land. The Great Tree tells a story of the Wise Queen of the East and describes how humanity strayed from the path while the Wise Queen stayed true. This, together with the scripture excerpts are my way of hinting at a runaway global warming event that sent humanity racing for the clouds.
And this leads us to the planet Venus and oceans. What? Yes, Venus and oceans. Stay with me here.
Venus suffers from runaway global warming. It is hot and toxic to human life. The atmosphere is over ninety percent carbon-dioxide at a pressure of ninety-three bars. Compare that to Earth’s atmospheric pressure of one bar. It’s ninety-three times as dense on Venus! It’s so dense it would feel like being under 3,000 feet of water.
Do you see the ocean correlation now?
If the atmosphere of Lina’s world has taken on even half the characteristics of Venus, the air would be as thick as water and unbreathable. Of course, it wouldn’t be uniform. Just like the ocean, it would be more crushing at great depths. And, like the ocean, theoretically, one could float on top of it.
In fact, the ocean itself is not one uniform layer of water, but rather has been divided into five distinct layers. The topmost is called the sunlight layer. That’s the layer we swim in and where most of the cute little fish we’re familiar with live.
Below that is the twilight layer, and home to some odd-looking creatures. Things get darker and stranger the deeper you go. Keep going, and you get to the trenches, like the Mariana that’s over 35,000 feet deep. Compare that to Everest’s 29,000 foot peak, and you get an idea of the difference between top and bottom.
In Lina’s world, however, the abyss is at what we would call sea level. Clouds are her ocean. Mountain tops of the Himalayan range are her islands. The atmosphere below these peaks is so thick it can support boat-like craft, the cloud skimmers.
Is it a stretch of imagination? Perhaps, but at least there is some plausibility behind it.
The cloud skimmers have a little bit of science behind them as well. They’re a mash-up of the venerable Chinese junk design coupled with hot air balloons to add buoyancy. The balloons are kept inflated using solar power.
